Gun Violence

This special collection brings together evidence and insights from nonprofits, foundations, and research organizations working to understand the full impact of firearm use and gun violence in the US. By providing us with analyses of current state and federal laws as well as valuable data on suicides, homicides, accidents, and mass shootings, these organizations seek to inform sound public policy and to curb this ongoing public health epidemic.

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Since 1980, there have been at least 56 mass shootings (3 or more fatalities) where the shooter used high-capacity ammunition magazines. A total of 507 people were killed in these shootings and 497 were wounded. This number is likely a significant undercount of actual incidents since there is no consistent collection or reporting of this data. Even in many high-profile shootings information on magazine capacity is not released or reported.

Gun violence is an epidemic in this country. Over 117,000 Americans are shot every year, with 33,000 dying -- a rate that dwarfs every other industrialized nation. Adding insult to injury is the fact that we know so much of this pain is preventable. How do we know that? We've done the research.
Each year, the legal experts at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence analyze the strength of gun laws in all 50 states and assign letter grades. Then we compare those grades to the states' gun death rates. Year after year, we've seen a powerful correlation: states with stronger laws have fewer gun deaths per capita while states with weaker laws have more gun deaths. And interstate gun trafficking has become a contagion -- states with the weakest laws are also the source of the most crime guns. Simply put, smart gun laws are saving lives. But to reach their full potential, those laws urgently need to be adopted nationwide.

Everytown For Gun Safety conducted a comprehensive analysis of every mass shooting between January 2009 and July 2015 that was identifiable through FBI data and media reports. This report describes the 133 mass shootings -- almost two per month that occurred in 39 states in the nearly seven-year period. Each description includes the location of the shooting, number of people killed and/or injured, and information on the shooter, gun(s), ammunition, and gun purchase, where available.
The FBI defines "mass shooting" as any incident where at least four people were murdered with a gun. Everytown For Gun Safety reviewed mass shootings in the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports from 2009-2012 and searched the media for further details about these incidents as well as for mass shootings that occurred in 2013 -- 2015.
This survey includes every shooting we identified in which at least four people were murdered with a gun. And the findings reveal a different portrait of mass shootings in America than conventional wisdom might suggest.

Two years after the failure of Senate legislation to expand background checks on gun purchases, the public continues to overwhelmingly support making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. Currently, 85% of Americans -- including large majorities of Democrats (88%) and Republicans (79%) -- favor expanded background checks, little changed from May 2013 (81%).
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted July 14-20, 2015 among a national sample of 2,002 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (700 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,302 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 758 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older.
As previous Pew Research Center surveys have found, there is broad support for expanded background checks even from those who say it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun ownership.

During the period 2000 to 2013, the overall U.S. Hispanic population grew 53.3 percent. This study is intended to report the latest national information available at the time of writing on Hispanic homicide victimization and suicide in the United States, the role of firearms in homicide and suicide, and overall gun death figures. Recognizing this demographic landscape, the importance of documenting such victimization is clear.

In 2012, across the nation there were only 259 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program as detailed in its Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). That same year, there were 8,342 criminal gun homicides tallied in the SHR. In 2012, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 32 criminal homicides. And this ratio, of course, does not take into account the tens of thousands of lives ended in gun suicides or unintentional shootings that year.
This report analyzes, on both the national and state levels, the use of firearms in justifiable homicides. It also details, using the best data available on the national level, the total number of times guns are used for self-defense by the victims of both attempted and completed violent crimes and property crimes whether or not the use of the gun by the victim resulted in a fatality.

Regardless of the individuals involved in a shooting or the circumstances that gave rise to it, gunfire in our schools shatters the sense of security that these institutions are meant to foster. Everyone should agree that even one school shooting is one too many.
In this report, incidents were classified as school shootings when a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds, as documented by the press or confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement. Incidents in which guns were brought into schools but not fired, or were fired off school grounds after having been possessed in schools, were not included.
Over the course of two years, we identified a total of three incidents in which a private citizen discharged a firearm at a school that was ultimately determined to be self-defense -- February 4, 2013 at Martin Luther King, Jr., High School in Detroit, MI, January 30, 2014 at Eastern Florida State College, and April 7, 2014 at Eastern New Mexico University. These three incidents were not included in the analysis.

Based on the most recent available data, in 2011 there were 2,703 child and teenage firearm deaths in America. That's seven of America's youth killed every day. These youth were shot in different ways by varying intents -- some were murdered, some unintentionally shot themselves or were unintentionally shot by another, and others died by their own hand. All were tragic and should lead to public outcry about the continuous threat gun violence poses to our nation's youth.
This report provides a detailed breakdown of data on children and guns, including 2011 fatal injury, nonfatal injury, and violent death data, as well as other relevant studies. We analyzed the 2,703 youth firearm deaths and 16,700 youth firearm injuries, detailing trends, as well as where and how these shootings occurred.
This is a public health crisis. These deaths are preventable. Most parents bring a gun into the home legally with no intent of doing harm. Many think they're doing their family a service by offering protection. Yet it is these guns that cause the majority of gun deaths and injuries. A gun in the home is a significant risk factor for homicide, suicide, and unintentional shootings. The firearm is much more likely to harm a family member, such as a child or teen, than to help prevent or deter a crime. Ultimately, where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths.
We at Brady are working hard to reduce gun death and injury. The first step toward solving this public health crisis is understanding the problem -- where, how, and why these deaths and injuries occur. This report provides that overview.

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